2007 Maorou

I thought this wine, in its tall, heavy bottle, made in France from grapes I like, seemed very promising. At least on the first night open, the wine did not meet my hopes.

On first pour, its decent complex of red fruits was overwhelmed by strong acid. Over the next 2hr 40min in a glass, the wine did darken and add some weight, to show flavors of red and purple cherries, red and black raspberries, and boysenberry. For a while, around 90 minutes of air, it seemed to promise opening into something quite subtly complex, but it never delivered on that promise. Instead, it stayed fairly simple and sharply acid, even with dinner of fatty pork sausages.

I’ve saved half of this bottle in a 375ml bottle with a stopper and very little air. I’ll update this post or comment after I open the second half, but I wanted to get this out quickly. Any other opinions?

Update next day: The second half, with a little more air in the glass, is indeed quite good: The wine’s closed nature has opened to show rich, complex, tangy, dark fruits of plum, cherry, blackberry, raspberry, with earth and a little lighter prune and tobacco. The fruit is still sort of hard, and the wine is still sort of acid, but it’s very good and a very good wine with food. Upgrade to Thumbs Up, especially at the sale price.

So, how do you get this effect at home? Maybe four hours of air in a covered decanter? More research is required. 🙂

Update 22 May: “More research” indicates that the solution is to put this wine in a covered decanter for a day before you want to drink it. See below for details.

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9 thoughts on “2007 Maorou”

During the last sale (over a month ago), I got a couple more bottles of this wine. One went into cool storage, but the other was the subject of “more research” over the last couple days.

Yesterday, I opened the bottle at 1:40pm. I stored half in one screw-capped full size bottle, and stored the other half in another, i.e., both had a good bit of air above them. At 5:40 yesterday, I opened one of them. It was pretty good, especially after an hour or so in the glass and with food, but it was still rather closed and a little harsh.

Today, I opened the second half, also at 5:40, and it was quite good! It showed blackberry, black cherry, black olive, blueberry, still with plenty of acid of black raspberry / boysenberry, although it was still somewhat on the harder side, and was still better with food. So… that seems to be the answer: put it in a covered decanter for a day before you want to drink it.

I too cut the bottle in half. I gave the first half bottle one and one-half hours of breathing time. I did sneak a taste at opening; and in fact it is very tart and acid… and old world and wonderful!

Following your advice I made up a spaghetti dinner with sausage, mushrooms, and lots of olive oil!

The wine, was more than a match. Howemsoever, this is a very well balanced wine.

One of my chief complaints with any wine that does not quite “make it”, is a thinned-out watery spacer, typically just after the first blush of nose or initial fruity taste. This one has none of that. It is full, solid and full of potential from the Gissel to the gorge.

As it happens, the new owner of Yreka’s GO is trying this one tonight. We planned on discussing it tomorrow. I’m going to hop in my Jeep right now and by the rest!

Hi Steven and welcome! I, too, think this wine is full of potential, but I am not sure how to help it reach that potential – hours in a decanter, years in storage? If you figure it out, please let us know.

Very interested in your follow up and to try it myself. I grabbed one bottle of this today but was charged for two, so rather than go through the hassle of a refund I grabbed a second. Thought it was a good bet because the wine guy gave me a nice description of it and it sounded like it would appeal to my old world preferences. He didn’t mention a strong acid component so I’m wondering if your bottle was an aberration or not. I’ll reply again after tasting it.

I noticed a familiar bottle in a selection of wines in front of Darrell Corti in the AAA on line magazine. Upon checking it out I found the 2007 Mourou being sold at Corti Brothers for $18.99.
This may be worth a try.

I agree with the earlier review of the Maorou. Upon opening it’s as tightly wound as a cat at an old timers tennis stringing convention. A lot of tartness that just overwhelms. With plenty of air time it opens up and softens quite a bit. It might be even better day 2. It’s an Old World wine with the dry style but has some New World sensibilities. I can’t decide how I feel about it. It does have character but on one level it’s still a bit of a rough ride. If you like French wines it’s worth checking out.